Manfred fired off a response letter a day after Councilman Justin Brannan (D-Brooklyn) suggested that MLB implement a new policy requiring umpires to call games once rain delays stretch more than an hour beyond the scheduled first pitch.

“The challenge that we face in scheduling and rescheduling is fitting each club’s 162 games into a span of 186 days, affording very few mutual off days for makeup games… ,” wrote Manfred.

“We have a strong desire to play games as scheduled in order to complete our season on time and limit the demanding travel often associated with makeup games. For those reasons and others, a one-hour maximum rain delay before a postponement is impractical.”

Brannan’s office is also currently researching whether the City Council has legislative authority to require New York’s baseball teams — the Mets and Yankees — make its rain delay policies more fan friendly, The Post first reported Tuesday.

see also

MLB has not responded to questions about the potential of government getting involved in its rain-delay policy.

Manfred’s letter did not address an alternate proposal by Brannan to guarantee fans “rain check” vouchers to future games should they leave or not show up when a rain delay goes long but the game is ultimately completed.

However, Manfred said fans “know well that rain delays and postponements are an unfortunate but inevitable reality of our game.”

When asked about Manfred’s response, Brannan stood by his plan, saying the “the only thing ‘impractical’ is MLB expecting fans to spend their hard-earned cash as they wait endlessly to see whether a game should be called or not.”

“MLB has the chance to do the right thing by their fans, who are already paying a small fortune to catch a game. They should consider it,” he added.